Like I said yesterday, what we are attending to in our relationships matters. Where our focus is affects our experience. And it works for life too.

If we’re stressed, it’s a guarantee that our focus is the problem. It’s a fear and focus on something that might happen, or a concern with something that we did and feel bad in some way about. Stress means we have followed the mind ahead to the future or back into the past.

The feelings are fine. They aren’t the problem really. We can let them be, and move and flow, and take over if they want. They rise and fall. We can be present with them, allow them, and experience them… without stress.

I remember after making the decision to leave my first husband, sitting on my yoga mat and experiencing an inner earthquake. I was surprised that my yoga students couldn’t see my body shaking physically. It was fear, grief, life rearranging and shaking my foundations. I watched it with interest, fascinated. I worked hard to keep my attention on the present moment, and when my mind got away from me I had a homing thought that brought me back to Divine Reality and away from whatever fictitious horror my mind was conjuring. At that time my thought was something I heard from Iyanla Vanzant: “When everything feels like it’s falling apart, is when everything is falling into place, for you and everyone around you.”

If we want to keep sight of, or even glimpse, Divine Reality/Peace/The Now, we have to bring attention to the positive or to the present… sometimes intense attention. It can be hard work. It’s not as easy as falling in love, but we can find the time, like we did for our lover – didn’t we have all the time in the world somehow in the beginning of our relationship? – and sit and hold a positive thought that we believe. Now I like, “Everything happens for a purpose, and that purpose is my spiritual growth.” Or we can sit there and accept the present moment or focus on this breath, and this breath, and this one…

The present moment is a doorway. The body is a doorway. Not just to feeling better… but if that’s what you need, use the breath or the presence is the body for that. You can feel less worried, or angry, or sad. You can feel more peace.

You can even use it to lessen physical pain.

Stay tuned…